10th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day

jonk689 writes "Let's face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe will be showered with large piles of cash and expensive sports cars in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It's the least you could do."

Comments

"But we did all the work!"

[raddan]

Yeah, sysadmins get shit on. But hey, we all knew it came with the territory before we got into this job. Part of this is due to the fact that people seem to think that computer run on magic or something, so they have no clue what we do.

As an aside, the IT department at work has kept a running tally on how long it's been since we've been thanked for our work at the company picnic. I've been here for 6 years... nothing yet. Meanwhile, the lowliest assistant gets a mention (and even sometimes [some assistant's] husband or wife, "for moral support").

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Brian Gordon]

Here's the more famous homage to sysadmins dealing with lusers :)

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[vux984]

That's one of my favorites. Its sheer brilliance.

But not because it illustrates the idiocy of the users (which it does) but because in that one IT is completely dysfunctional too. I mean its funny not because I know users like that (and I do), but because I know IT people like that... arrogant, dishonest, totally incompetent...

Its unbelievable (and yet eerily familiar) how bad IT is in that that clip.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[nizo]

I always instill confidence in the user population by loudly declaring, "it's a miracle any of this stuff ever works" as often as possible.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[contrapunctus]

As an aside, the IT department at work has kept a running tally on how long it's been since we've been thanked for our work at the company picnic. I've been here for 6 years... nothing yet. Meanwhile, the lowliest assistant gets a mention (and even sometimes [some assistant's] husband or wife, "for moral support").

They haven't paid you in 6 years?

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Brian Gordon]

It's not all IT's fault. Watch part 2 for the kind of stuff he has to deal with from Chip. Part 2 is even better IMO

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[vux984]

Oh I never claimed it was ALL IT's fault, but lets face it...

1) he's playing video games when he should be working, even as the shit is hitting the fan
2) he brings down a website he wasn't supposed to, without any real reason
3) he initially lies about the fact that he brught it down
4) he lies about the fact that he received an email not to reboot it
5) he deletes the sent record of a message from someones exchange box to help him justify the lie he never received it
6) he takes a screenshot of the penis desktop with the intent of posting it online
7) after rearranging the desktop so the user is upset, he fixes it by using the screenshot (making the user 'happy' but leaving the laptop completely unusable)
8) he was also indirectly responsible for bringing down the mail server as well ...

I agree completely that the users were completely worthless too ... they were clueless, ignorant, irrational, demanding, and everything IT loves to make fun of... but IT's behaviour was just as bad. They were not the suffering unthanked heroes here.

I suppose you could say the users got the IT they deserved. :)

How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Brian Gordon]

It's the least you could do

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[sys.stdout.write]

Actors have the academy awards.
Physicists have the Nobel Prize.
Computer programmers have furry conventions.

Why not give sys admins the same respect?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Translation Error]

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

A little extra show of appreciation, especially to someone who often has to work late without warning or come in at odd times and deal with frustrating problems and frustrated people, can go a long way to making a person feel comfortable and, well, appreciated. Treating people nicely, whatever their profession, generally encourages them to go that extra mile for you; saying that you give them a check and they don't deserve an iota more encourage the opposite.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[vertinox]

How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

That's on October 10th.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Power-plant engineers, electricians, and A/C maintenance folks do not get appreciation days. And without their work, no servers would be up and available.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Corbets]

The fact that without the servers being up and available, most other professions do not continue to run.

Yet without other professions to do the actual work of your company, there's not even a need for you and your servers.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[geekoid]

Believe me, I give the sysadmins the same respect I give furries~

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[royallthefourth]

The fact that without the servers being up and available, most other professions do not continue to run.

Unless you're a developer. In that case, it's better to go ahead and fix it yourself instead of waiting for the sysadmin to try rebooting and then come asking for help.

I guess some of us have better work environments than others :-(

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

That's on October 10th.

Thank God, I hate memory leaks.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Hatta]

What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Who said anything about being *more* deserving of appreciation? Every hard worker deserves some appreciation.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[nizo]

That's right; sysadmins are part of a team of people required to keep the business running smoothly. But how many other folks in the company need to get up at 3am to do their jobs? Many sales guys have an emergency sales meeting at 3am? How about the secretary, does he get paged and need to come in with no notice so he can file some documents at 3am? Not many other professions would put up with the lack of resources and total ignorance of planning that a sysadmin puts up with all the time. Yet since the sysadmin isn't doing anything that can have a simple metric applied to it (number of sales closed, number of documents filed), people just assume they aren't doing anything useful.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[evilviper]

Yet without other professions to do the actual work of your company, there's not even a need for you and your servers.

I've setup MANY systems specifically designed to replace 100 people, performing time-consuming tasks, with 1 guy hitting a few buttons and moving some paper around.

If that guy didn't exist, I could do that job myself, in-between other tasks.

My company has other employees, of course, but certain companies can be almost COMPLETELY automated by computers, and some entire industries have disappeared because of it.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[nizo]

...where the consequences of failure are so high...

So is spending $3,000 to cool a room full of servers a reasonable expenditure? Especially when that room full of servers is failing due to heat, taking down company email, web, and file shares, and possibly damaging 30-40 thousand dollars worth of equipment? I've had bosses quibble over things even more idiotic than this, believe me. And then the higher ups wonder why things are broken, and why haven't you finished all your other projects? while pleas for $3,000 to fix the problem fall on deaf ears. Hey, we already spent $40,000 on computer stuff before you got here, why do you need $3,000 more???

  It's like telling the secretary she gets $50 to furnish her new office space, and she shows up and there is just a big empty spot on the floor. And yet somehow this is widely seen as ok.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Baloo Uriza]

I hate to break it to you, but if you're a sysadmin and not a furry, something is wrong with you.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Romancer]

That argument is a dead end. Not insightful.

Without all of the other reasons the professionals need the servers, there are others that also need them. Say if the google servers go down. Not only will google suffer but the dependent users and other third party positions that utilize those informational sources.

Now the other extreme, say your companies servers go down, you will be unable to log in to your computer if it is a domain. You will be unable to get into outlook since exchange is down. (assuming a windows environment here since it's easier for other non sys admins to fix)

We haven't even gotten into the backup proceedures and data management yet. Even database admins need the servers to have redundant power supplies, raid and offsite backups or the data they manipulate will be gone. Now do you think that they will manage these things and keep everything running smoothly if their SQL box goes down?

So saying that " without other professions to do the actual work of your company, there's not even a need for you and your servers."

It's kind of like saying that without people to need air, what's the purpose of air?
It's not just a direct link to the professional people inside a company, it's all the interwoven ties outside the company and all of the consumers and all of the people who use the data that relies or comes from those servers ten steps away that are effected.

You order a book from amazon: you went through your local ISP routing servers, the backbone of the internet, their local ISP, their servers, their credit card processing servers, your banks servers, the shipping company servers, etc...

come on. Someone keeps all these things talking together and the first time you can't access your online banking site you complain. When do you say thanks. Just a thanks, good job keeping these things up with more regularity than most people do in their jobs. We're on call all the time and expected to keep it all up with five nines since that's what gets advertised to the managers.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Romancer]

No, the point is that the people who know how to make the integral parts of the system that glues all of the other positions together and lets it function, should be getting as much recognition on a company wide basis as say, the secratary. Who has an appreciation day.

To say that the people who spend years carefully crafting systems that have contradictory requirements and multiple departmental roles are just and only as important as every other department in a company is overly idealistic. Yes, everybody should be equally appreciated. But that's not the real world and you should be ashamed of using that fallacy of an argument on slashdot.

The point is that there are people that get blamed if something goes wrong but not congradulated if everything works perfectly for months on end. There are jobs out there that the sole purpose is to make it seem like the position is not needed by making the system have no problems on the user side. There are jobs where people work until the 7am hours of the morning monday so that everybody can come in and not notice that the entire server cluster has been moved to a new version since the old one had security holes and Microsoft released an updated OS.

Saying things like:
"IT is no more or less important than the functions of a company that produce, design, and sell their product."

Is like going to your boss and saying that their job is no more or less important than the custodial crew and why are they compensated so much more than them.

You really think you'll have a job if they don't think you're joking?
Are you that out of touch with the real world that you think that those idealistic arguments hold any water?

The stock holders know nothing about what OS service pack or Linux Kernel the servers are running. They see the reports of other departments sometimes blaming the IT department for downtime or cost overruns. Unforseen increases of budget, without the explination of what worm, patch, or user error caused the initial problem.

This is the problem with the industry. The whole job of the sysadmin is to make him/herself not seen. To make it look like the systems are fine and running smoothly. Any reports that there are problems are like any other department reporting that something they are doing broke and is going to cost the company money. Like the marketing department comming the the president and saying that the next few weeks are going to be problematic because the graphics department is not working on new designes since they all need to be replaced with designers with faster fingers so in the future they won't be too slow.

There's usually no middleground between the IT department having a problem and the boss/users seeing it immediatly. It doesn't get to go the the IT manager and get fixed at that level. Everybody sees or hears about the problem when it happens. Very publicly. But when was the last time you heard anybody say that the IT department at your work did a good job upgrading or migrating a server?

You are probably just as guilty of widening the devide between departmental appreciation.
Most businesses that are not completely computer centric are guilty of this. Since I know quite a few sysadmins and I haven't heard that any of their jobs were appreciative, I'd say that your statements and theirs help to prove that this day is not even given the lip service it was intended to create. Is it too hard for you people to admit that the ones who make everything easier should get a little nod, instead, we get the arguments and belittling that our jobs are just the same as everybody elses.

Walk a mile in our shoes.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Romancer]

Kinda the point of your argument. You don't like my attitude but won't even admit my point of view exists as a rational response to the environment my position requires. You don't even allow for the experiences of the other posters to mean that what we are going through exists since you haven't been there at those jobs. Couldn't you at least think for a second that there are jobs out there that are designed to be unseen and that are at the same time, very important in an immediate sense. That others couldn't step in and do if needed within a company.

So let's take a look at where you are coming from:

"You think the Quality Assurance department gets congratulated when federal regulators don't decide to cite violations"

If they have a good year and meet their goals, yes I think they get congratulated. They should, I hate bad products as much as anybody. The QA department at my work does get the praise when they have no issues. They get an award that they had no problems with the quality control system and no systems had to be recalled or modified after production. It saved the company so much money that they got a freakin party.

"You think the equipment engineers get congratulated when their systems don't breakdown on high volume three shifts per day production lines?"

I think that it's not one person in charge of those machines and they have layers between the engineers and the actual production machines that are built by seperate manufacturing companies that may warranty their products. If a machine fails on the line multiple people are responsible for the maintenance, upkeep, usage and design. It's not all on one person's shoulders. I also think that if a company has a long run of uptime on a line then the employees see a reward. I haven't personally worked on a line but I do think that they occasionally get a pizza party if they do well for a year. I have worked near the line maintenance crew and the boss would take the guys out for a beer or get them gift certificates to the movies if they worked hard to get a machine back up quickly.

"You think the hospital systems engineer gets congratulated when their nurse alarm systems don't fail resulting in patient death?"

I do think that those systems are infinitely less complex and require much less daily weekly and monthly updates, patches, repairs and redesigns. I am not trying to minimize the importance of those systems and the necessity that they be kept working, or even the responsibilities that those people have, but I do think that they are a hell of a lot more static in their use than the servers you are trying to compare them to. They have a lot fewer security updates pushed out by the manufacturer and much less of a load on them from day to day users. Less change and less complexity lend to less problems and less downtime. I do agree though that if one failed it would look pretty bad but again it isn't about just the negative. I have heard of those systems saving lives and the staff, as well as the systems and their designers are in the paper or on the company newsletter that month if it was a heroic event. I have saved the companies millions of dollars and other sysadmins have probably saved lives by keeping systems running or getting them back on line in time for the hospitals and emergency rooms but it's all on the back end. There's a tenuous connection at best in the minds of the management. But that connection is as solid as any other piece of the puzzle and the recognition is missing since the understanding isn't important to the rest of the departments. It just has to work for them to do their jobs. We as system admins have to understand what all the departments want and give them the ability to do as close to that as physically possible but they don't try and understand the hurdles and complexities that are required to get them those services.

"Where is the manufacturing appreciation day?"

They have jobs where if one person doesn't show up to work the business keeps going if something goes wrong on the

Consolation Prize!

[Aldenissin]

If you haven't been there, then this is for you! http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/

Piss off

[Anonymous Coward]

But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It's the least you could do.

Why should you get a gift for doing your job like everyone else does?

Summary of the Article

[neonprimetime]

Sysadmins setup the web server to host www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins setup the networks that allow you to view www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins protect your networks to make sure you're really viewing www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins make backups of www.sysadminday.comin case it has issues.
Sysadmins ensure there is no viruses on the www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins wakeup at 2am to reboot the servers and ensure www.sysadminday.com is up.
Sysadmins would will gladly help you navigate to www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins really just want a friend, but if that's not possible they are satisfied with you going to www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins would also be very happy if you post a link to www.sysadminday.com on other sites

Re:Summary of the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Let's show our appreciation on this special day by slashdotting their servers....

Re:Summary of the Article

[Xtifr]

The rant above assumes I have any interest in visiting sysadminday.com, but we'll gloss over that for the moment. :)

Sysadmins setup the web server to host www.sysadminday.com

A web server that was created by developers.

Sysadmins setup the networks that allow you to view www.sysadminday.com

If you mean the physical infrastructure, then no; otherwise, yes, using the software created by developers for that purpose.

Sysadmins protect your networks to make sure you're really viewing www.sysadminday.com

ITYM "try to protect", and again, using software created by developers.

Sysadmins make backups of www.sysadminday.com

By running scripts and applications created by developers (and hardware provided by...another kind of developers).

Sysadmins ensure there is no viruses on the www.sysadminday.com

ITYM "try to ensure", and again, using software created by developers, assuming that the sysadmins or their bosses were foolish enough to select virus-prone software in the first place. (Otherwise, they try to ensure it by selecting or installing systems which aren't virus-prone, the solution used by my company.)

Sysadmins wakeup at 2am to reboot the servers and ensure www.sysadminday.com is up

That one I'll give you, although if it still has problems after rebooting, who do the admins call? That's right--the developers.

Sysadmins would will gladly help you navigate to www.sysadminday.com

Using software created by developers.

Sysadmins really just want a friend, but if that's not possible they are satisfied with you going to www.sysadminday.com

In my experience, I have to say I think you're overgeneralizing, but some admins are friendly enough. Others follow the advice of the BOFH, though...
(I'm tempted to inject something here about "some of my best friends are...", but I'll resist the urge.) :)

Sysadmins would also be very happy if you post a link to www.sysadminday.com on other sites

Except for the ones that have enough sense not to support link-spamming. :)

So, as near as I can figure it, sysadmins should be worshipping the ground I walk on. Yet that doesn't seem to be happening. Oh well, maybe I'll take one out for a beer later in any case.

Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[Garbad Ropedink]

My sysadmin tattled on me when I played a prank on a co-worker by changing his wallpaper to look like his computer had an error. The admin took half a second to figure out what was wrong. Then he went off and told my manager and they sent out a company wide email saying that the sysadmin was owed an apology. I've also had a number of run ins with previous sysadmins. Blocking web access randomly and refusing to allow me to change my mouse to left handed mode.

I think it would work better as a holiday if we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day. Maybe burn a few effigies.

I know there are probably a lot of sysadmins on this website so I didn't post anonymously because I know how you people take such pleasure in getting your petty petty revenges. So that's my gift to you on your special day. :)

A nice token gift and some public acknowledgment?

[exley]

Actually, the least I could do is nothing.

I've got really bad news for you IT guys and gals

[Overzeetop]

This just cements you in place as being very low on the corporate totem pole. Every hear CEO appreciation day? Management appreciation day? Doctor appreciation day? Engineer appreciation day (engineer's day in India doesn't count)? Lawyer appreciation day?

No?

How about teacher appreciation day? Secretary (or, ahem, administrative assistant) appreciation day? See where I'm going with this? I wouldn't take this as a compliment.

Re:A nice token gift and some public acknowledgmen

[Fyzzle]

Actually, the least I could do is nothing.

You sir, are ready to be a Sysadmin. Welcome.

Generosity

[DoofusOfDeath]

But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It's the least you could do.

... if you value email access.

It's today?

[elvum]

If /. had run this story yesterday, many more sysadmins would have been appreciated...

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[Anonymous Coward]

Every hear CEO appreciation day?

Yes, it's the day they pay the multi-million dollar bonuses.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[matang]

all developers think they could be sysadmins (the inherent problem in dealing with them). i'm happy to finally be in a position where we don't have any in house developers. in the past ten years, no stereotypable group (technophobes, self-taught-it-experts, etc) has been more frustrating to work with than developers. all they NEED is something to input text and something to compile that text but they end up with $5,000 worth of equipment, countless hours of tech support, and endless perks but they still bitch that they can't work because we won't give them admin access to install twitter apps or "ram booster" software.

some public acknowledgment?

[nurb432]

How about just be left alone for the day by the 'public' ?

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[assantisz]

Doctor appreciation day: http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/March/doctorsday.htm, Dentist's Day: http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/March/dentistsday.htm, National Pharamcist Day: http://holidayinsights.com/other/pharmacistday.htm and so on.

Re:Pet Peeve

[rAiNsT0rm]

Users are generally the least of our problems.

1. Management/bosses that have no grasp of technology but need to look like they do to stay employed.
2. Middle management who see their role as web-surfing and bare minimum work because they have people under them to do it all.
3. Underfunding
4. Being forced into unrealistic timetables and deadlines
5. Being expected to be on-call 24x7 with no extra pay or time off
6. Being afraid to speak up ever because the response will always be, "OK, then get on that"
7. Expectations that off-the-shelf software will always magically be a perfect fit with every feature needed
8. Wanton disregard for company property. Cookies mashed in a laptop, 12 broken cell phones a year, etc.
9. Re-infecting your computer the day it comes back to you from being reimaged due to viruses/spyware
10. Disrespect and unprofessionalism from anyone (users or management)

Re:Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[Doug Neal]

The reason that sysadmins can be unpopular even with other nerds is because it's all too common for them to come across as having shitty attitudes, even if they are good at their job and do all the things you've just described. I've been a sysadmin for about 5 years and have worked both with developers that I'm supporting and with more senior sysadmins, so I'm familiar with both "sides" of the matter. Sysadmins are often in a fairly unique position in the organisations that they work for in that they are usually the only person there who can do certain tasks; everyone comes to them with requests, all day, some of them reasonable and some of them not; they have the final veto on lots of technical decisions, and they have their finger on the big red button both literally and metaphorically. This inevitably feeds the alpha-geek megalomania and bolsters the ego. Patience wears thin and fuses get short, and if you're having a bad day it's sometimes very hard to stop yourself snapping at your colleagues when you get a particularly frustrating request or interruption (which more often than not isn't even the other person's fault). I've been on the giving and receiving end of such behaviour before and either way, it's not pleasant for either party. A good sysadmin who's nice to people and not an egotistical dick* will get appreciated every day, not just on July 31st. If that isn't the case then you're probably working with dicks and might want to think about moving jobs.

*this isn't particuarly aimed at the parent, just a general observation.

Re:Stop getting in my way then you may get somethi

[geekoid]

FYI as a consultant, you are given the lowest man on the totem to work with.

I find it funny to watch you overpriced goons squirm.

Re:Stop the madness

[apoc.famine]

We did, until the internet showed up. Now EVERYONE can beg for attention. Triple points if you work in a profession which requires some web-savviness, since you can leverage that into a bigger cry for attention.
 
Look, I've been tech support and a SA, I've relied on tech support and the SA. I do my job, you do your job. I thank you for doing your job well, you thank me for doing my job well.
 
If this isn't your work climate, LEAVE! Get yourself a job where people appreciate your work, and you appreciate theirs. It's not some magical fantasy-land. Stop wallowing in shit, and then demanding thanks for it.
 
If you need a "day" for your position, then you're being treated like shit. Get a new job.